Question

I happened to write this:

<input type="hdnStatus" name="hidden" value="1" />

Instead of:

<input type="hidden" name="hdnStatus" value="1" />

I was surprised that the first line generated a text box with no correct type
specified.

If first line generates text box, then is the below line of any use:

<input type="text" name="tbox" value="" />

It definitely is. What I mean is that rendering engines should be smart enough to
reject any incorrect input. Such things always create confusion and problems.

How did that happen?
Is this browser’s fault or something else?
Or it is something wrongly correct?

Answer 1

From the HTML 4.01 spec:

Attribute definitions

type = text|password|checkbox|radio|submit|reset|file|hidden|image|button [CI]
This attribute specifies the type of control to create. The default value for this attribute is “text”.

So it appears that your browser falls back to the default value for type if it is invalid. This seems like sensible behaviour to me.